Super Bowl XLI: Tony Dungy Interview

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On the importance of two African-American coaches making the Super Bowl.

By Jon Robinson

First time I met Tony Dungy, I couldn't believe how humble, how genuinely nice the man was. And it's no different now that he's in the Super Bowl as the man just has an aura of peace about him that's unmatched in the egomaniacal world of sports.

Dungy has been meeting with media every day since he's arrived in Miami, answering questions about everything from Peyton to the glass ceiling.

Here's what the nicest man in sports had to say&#Array;

(on what he would tell his defense to do if they had to defend Peyton Manning) "Well, our offense is really not that difficult. We don't do a lot, we don't go in motion, we don't do a lot with different formations; we just play basic football. I think what you have to do is do what you do best and that's what we expect from the Bears. They are not going to change very much. Obviously, the more pressure you put on any quarterback, the better off you're going to be. You have to stop the run and put pressure on the quarterback without taking too many chances."

(on whether or not you can outthink yourself as a coach) "I think you're better off, in any game, doing what you do and that's what we're going to try to do. We're really not going to be too concerned with what the Bears may do; we're going to do what we do best. I think that's the way to play no matter who you're playing against."

(on having a quarterback who is already established) "To me, it was just a tremendous blessing. Normally when you take over a team, you're taking over because the team is not winning. Most of the time, they're not winning because they don't have an established quarterback. It's very, very seldom that you come to a team that has a Peyton Manning already in place, in his prime, ready to go. So the thing you try to do as a head coach is try to build on it and improve on it, but don't try to change the structure of what was already there. When I got there, we talked about continuing to be explosive and continuing to score points, but what we wanted to do was just hone in and take care of the ball just a little bit better. I think Peyton and the whole offense has done a great job of that. We've cut our turnovers down every year and still manage to score points and be explosive. So that was, for me, a blessing to step into a situation where the offense was already in place."

(on the chemistry between Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison) "I think the chemistry that Peyton has with a lot of our receivers now is through hard work&#Array;developing over time, running routes against air in practice and the offseason, running that route against eight or ten or twelve different types of coverages during the course of time. Certainly, he's done that with Marvin more than with anybody else because he's been there longer. But Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, [Aaron] Moorehead&#Array;all of those guys have developed that with him, it's just something special with Peyton and Marvin because they have been together so long. Marvin really thinks like a quarterback. He was a quarterback in high school, he understands when he sees a certain coverage what the quarterback is looking at, where the ball is likely to come, where to gear down, when to change things a little bit and they have tremendous recall, so that helps. It's really, more than anything, hard work of throwing those same routes over and over and over. They'll be out an hour before the Super Bowl working on routes that they've thrown for nine years."

(on how much thought he put into his message this week about the importance of making it to the Super Bowl as an African-American head coach) "To be honest about that, I've thought about it a lot. I've probably thought about it since 1999 when we were one step away from this game, and what it would have meant to me at that point. Now, seven years later, a lot of it is crystallized. It's important for me to let people know how proud I am to be here. It's important for me to let people know the guys who have gone before me, who spurred me on and were my role models. I watched John Thompson win that National Championship and I was excited. Seeing guys like John Chaney [as well]. Most often it had been in basketball, and it's great that we're seeing it in football now and it's important. But it's also important for me to kind of state my case too, as to the fact that it's not just African-American, but it's how you do it. Doing it with excellence, whether you're a minority, majority, whatever, anybody who gets an opportunity can do it well and do it with excellence."

(on what they fixed after the Jacksonville game to improve the running defense) "Bob Sanders helps because he's a great player, but whether he plays or not [isn't the only factor]. We played other games, we played Cincinnati, without Bob Sanders and without our top four safeties, as a matter of fact, and played better because we played smarter, we played faster, and we played with energy. That's what our defense is all about and we believe that we have to be able to do that no matter who is in the lineup. We just concentrated on doing what we do and not getting too exotic. Lovie [Smith] said it best, and he's been in many staff meetings with me when we've had trouble. I've always said, something I got from Coach [Chuck] Noll: 'when you struggle, do less.' That's what we try to do; we cut back on some of the things we were doing so we could execute a little faster and I think that helped the guys."

(on whether he and Lovie Smith have broken a glass ceiling by becoming the first African-American coaches to make it to the Super Bowl) "I don't think there is a glass ceiling. I think Lovie and I are just the result of people getting an opportunity. It's been so difficult for African Americans, in a lot of venues, to get opportunities. Football is one, we can look at Division I football. I saw an article yesterday about the media and who is covering it and how many African Americans have been on the broadcast teams for the Super Bowl. There are a lot of areas where, I think, us showing that we can be leaders, that we can get the job done when given the opportunity, hopefully that opens the eyes of a lot of people in a lot of venues."

(on whether there was a barrier preventing African Americans from becoming coaches in the NFL) "I think there was a subconscious barrier. I don't think it was directed at African Americans per se, but I think we had a vision of what a head coach looked like. The head coach of a successful team, to many people, looked like Vince Lombardi. It was a white, middle-aged coach who screamed fire and brimstone and that's what we saw in NFL Films and everything, and it was a great picture. The thing we didn't see is that there were a lot of other people who were successful. I happened to grow up under Bud Grant and he was just as successful in a completely different way. I don't think there was ever a picture of somebody who was not white. As owners, I know when I did some of those earlier interviews, people were trying to figure out in their mind if this would work. Not knowingly, not consciously, but [they wondered] 'we've never had this blueprint before, can this work?' I think now, over the years and with this happening and with two guys coming to the Super Bowl with maybe different personalities than most people perceive of an NFL head coach, a different value system, maybe, a different way of expressing themselves, people say 'you know what, anything can work if you get the right person.'

(on whether he was always this calm and composed growing up or how it developed) "No, I was not always this way. As a matter of fact, a lot of my high school buddies and junior high buddies remember a completely different person. I was very competitive. I have a 14-year old son right now, Eric, who is just like I was at that age. Winning and losing was the most important thing. I got a lot of technical fouls, got thrown out of some games. I wasn't the most liked teammate because I did push my buddies. I think as I grew from my Mom and Dad and learning what's important. I think maturing as a Christian and understanding things you can control and things you can't control. Really just growing and learning that a game, or the result of the game isn't the most important thing, it isn't life or death. It's our job, but there are a lot more things that make a difference in this universe than who wins the Super Bowl. There were a lot of things [that contributed to my growth], but I think the training from my Mom and Dad more than anything."

(on whether he thought about never making it to the Super Bowl) "I think about it all the time. For the last week and a half, I have. Clyde Christensen and I went walking today and my wife and I went walking earlier. You do think about everywhere&#Array;assistant coaching jobs and how you got the next job and what if Dennis Green never called me, what would I be doing? What if Coach [Chuck] Noll hadn't called me in 1981, what would I be doing now? A lot of that, I think, is the Lord's track for you. I never assumed that I would get here; I point that out to the team all the time. There are six teams who still haven't gotten here, so you can't assume that you are. I have always hoped that I would and looked forward to it, but I do reflect on it and give thanks to the Lord all the time. Not only for bringing me here, but probably the biggest thing, I was so overjoyed when we flew in here and on our plane I am just looking around and we've got people who have been with the Colts since they moved to Indianapolis. To see those people get to come here and to see how excited they were, not only are you coming and feel good for yourself, but I feel great for our whole organization and the people that have worked hard for 20 years to make it happen."

(on having a two-headed backfield, and having confidence in the running game) "We do have a lot of confidence in our running game; we always have. Peyton looks at the defense and he calls the play based on how the defense is designed, not feeling like we have to throw or we have to run, not looking at who is in the backfield. We had a situation I always point out to the team. Last year everyone was hurt, we were playing Jacksonville and were down 7-3 right at the end of the game. Edgerrin [James] had been out, Dominic [Rhodes] was out, James Mungro, our third back, was out, and Ran Carthon was in the game on a third-and-seven. Peyton doesn't even know who's back there. He calls the play, and Carthon scores the winning touchdown. That's the way we do things, and we've got a lot of confidence in both guys. We started Dominic in every game during the regular season because we thought it would be good for Joseph [Addai] to see what's going on and see the defenses before he went out there. In the playoffs, we went the other way and it's worked really well for us. Joseph has started off the game and Dominic has come in and really given us a spark and given us a lift coming off the bench and ratcheting things up another notch. We feel really good about our running game and we like the fact that we've got two guys who can really get the job done."

(on whether he thinks special teams will be a deciding factor in this game) "I think it very well can be decided there. That's one thing I learned from Coach Noll, Marty Schottenheimer, Dennis Green and guys I have worked with. When you play good teams&#Array;when you get in big games you're going to play good teams&#Array;the games are going to be close. Field position, making a field goal or not making it, pinning them inside the 20-yard line on the last kickoff and making New England go 80 yards rather than 50 yards, those things can be huge in games like this. They've got a great weapon in Devin Hester; we think we've got a weapon in Terrence Wilkins. We've got a Pro Bowl-caliber kicker; they've got a Pro Bowl kicker. It's going to be who performs the best, but I think special teams is going to be large, and it's something that we worked on last week and we'll continue to work on this week."

(on his priorities of faith, family, and football, and why he took the time this week to do a Big Brothers PSA) "I am glad you asked that, because to me that has always been my priority and always will be, no matter what line of work I am in. My Christian faith, that's who I am; that's never going to change. That's always going to be first place and it's going to determine how I do everything. I was fortunate enough to work for Coach [Chuck] Noll, whose family was very important to him. I saw that you could win and win Super Bowls and still place your family at a high priority. People asked us why we came down a day later. One of the reasons was because we played for 13 or 14 straight weeks and our guys were going to be separated from their families until Thursday. I wanted them to have an extra day on Saturday and Sunday to be with their family and make up for some of those 13 weeks that they weren't able to be. That was as important to me [as anything else]. I know we can still get our job done and we can do things in the five days that we have down here. To have that Sunday with their families was more important to me, frankly, than having the team come down here and meet the media. That's just the bottom line. That's the way I operate and I don't think there's anything wrong with that and I'm not going to apologize for it. My job is important and we're trying to win. I know Lovie [Smith] feels the same way. They asked us to do a PSA for Big Brothers. There were a lot of things we could have done, but that's one thing that we felt strongly about. We did it and we were happy to do it. I am happy to share the stage with Lovie Smith, who believes the same way that I do and thinks that family and faith are important as well."

(on how he decides who to put in the game between Addai and Rhodes) "We normally just split the carries. Our plan during the regular season was that Dominic [Rhodes] was going to start and we would put Joseph [Addai] in when we're in the red zone. But Gene Huey does a great job of looking at the carries and trying to balance them. We would ideally like to come out of the game with both guys carrying the workload. We've had games where one guy was just a little more effective than the other guy and we will leave that guy in if he's hot. We have confidence in both of them. Joseph has closed out games for us, Dominic closed out the Baltimore game as well as you can do it. It really doesn't matter to us who is in there and Gene Huey has a great feel for how they are rolling."